


touch fire (just to taste the truth)

by prismaticvoid



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Biting, Bloodplay, F/M, Unhealthy Relationships, mild d/s dynamics, nobody knows what's going on here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:04:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14729607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prismaticvoid/pseuds/prismaticvoid
Summary: Moira wants more data. What's left of Gabriel isn't sure what he wants.





	touch fire (just to taste the truth)

"Gabriel Reyes."  
"Witch." Her recruitment to Talon had been a wise tactical decision, but Reaper had no reason to trust her. Her claims of being able to "stabilize" his failing body after the effects of the SEP experimentation had caught up with him were accurate. At least, to a point: he was no longer dying. But what she had left him with was hardly stable. He had not seen her since the fall of Overwatch, and had assumed he never would again.  
But Talon thought they could use her. They probably could, but she'd be using them right back. Same as Reaper was, in a way.  
All Reaper could hope for was that she hated the prospect of working together as much as he did.  
"They tell me I'll be working under you again. Any chance of a raise?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.  
"Don't get smart with me. What do you want?"  
"Reports have emerged of a vigilante in Mexico, currently nicknamed Soldier: 76. Similar sightings have occurred all over the world, usually accompanied by destabilization of corporations and governments, but Dorado appears to be his base of operations. His physical features and fighting style give me reason to believe that we know who he is."  
Reaper did his best not to growl at her. "Get to the point, O'Deorain."  
"Jack Morrison is still alive."  
Try as he might, he was unable to hide his shock. That Gabriel had survived, or at least that Reaper had, was unlikely. That Jack had survived as well was impossible.  
"How certain are you."  
"I will need more evidence before I can be confident in this theory, but I believe Talon's resources will lead us to his identity in time." Ah, so that's why she finally decided to shack up with Talon. Or at least, one of the reasons. The woman's ulterior motives had ulterior motives.  
Even if she didn't know for sure, even if she was trying to rattle him, Moira had reasons for everything she did. She wouldn't lie for the sake of lying, and she abhorred presenting incomplete data. She knew something she wasn't telling him.  
"This isn't enough to act on. Come back when you have proof, and don't waste my time. Dismissed." 

His point made, Reaper stormed out of the briefing room and down the hallway. His pace did not slow until he found an empty room in which he could clear his thoughts.  
Moira thought Morrison was alive.  
He both hoped for and dreaded that possibility.  
Black mist swirled angrily around his feet, and his gauntleted hands curled into claws. His anger was threatening to overtake him when he heard a faint whooshing sound behind him. The sound was too close to the sounds of his own incorporeal movement for comfort.  
He whirled around, shotgun at the ready, as Moira stepped into the room from whatever space she went to when she slipped in between. Her teleportation was neater than his, more stealthy. Of course, she'd had him to practice on: always test on the lab rat before testing something _important_ , after all. He held his aim steady and growled.  
Moira looked at the large gun before her with a bored expression, and Reaper snapped.  
"Give me a good reason not to blow your fucking head off."  
Moira said nothing. Instead, she reached up with one hand, clawed nails on long, bony fingers (so delicate, so fragile, he could break them in a second), and curled her hand around the muzzle of the shotgun.  
Part of Reaper ached to pull the trigger, but this woman held his gaze with burning eyes and slowly, delicately, _pushed the gun down_.  
Her smile in that moment was sharp-edged.  
Holding the gun with her right hand (why can't he move it away why can't he shoot why doesn't he want to), Moira reached up to what remained of his face.  
Reaper remained deathly still as her long fingers grasped the edge of his mask. Stunned into immobility at her having the gall to touch him, he felt he could do nothing as with a sharp yank she pulled away his armor, his disguise, his _identity_ , and revealed the ruin of Gabriel Reyes.  
He didn't know what his face looked like anymore. After the effects had been impossible to ignore, after he knew he was stuck like this, he kept the mask on at all times and avoided mirrors.  
The expression on Moira's face changed rapidly, and Reaper prepared himself for her fear and disgust. If nothing else, he could drive her away with the horrific results of her own experimentation. That, he thought, might be enough for him.  
But instead, what he saw on Moira's features was something else. Something akin to delight.  
Dropping his mask to the floor with a clatter, she returned one clawed hand to his face. This close, he could see the threads of energy, life-giving and necrotic, that ran over her skin. She was powerful, dangerous, and captivating. He couldn't, wouldn't, didn't move away.  
She leaned in close, lips ghosting over what once was his ear, and whispered to him like a secret:  
" _Tell me how this feels_."  
He gritted his teeth, suppressing a shiver at the low, dispassionate tone of her voice. She had to know, after all her experiments. She had to know about the pain, the anxiety, the instability. She'd taken notes, and he'd watched her do it. All this question accomplished was unsettling him, and he had no intention of letting her know that.  
Her demand unanswered, Moira simply began tracing the planes of his face with her fingers. Her nails scratched lightly at his skin, drawing up wisps of black smoke in their wake. He felt his flesh sublimate beneath her fingertips, shifting and rotting and reforming as it always did, but Moira's sharp gaze made him feel like he could not reform what was lost. Her eyes, searching his face for clues, seemed to strip away all that was left of him.  
Her hand dropped to his mouth. Scarred and unstable as the rest of his face, but Reaper could feel Moira's focus increase as a few fingers traced his lips. Her thumb skimmed lightly over his bottom lip and pressed down, forcing his mouth open slightly. He exhaled sharply, sending more smoke out between his parted lips. Moira followed the smoke with her eyes for a moment, but then returned her focus to his face as her thumb slipped into his mouth.  
He didn't eat anymore, and his mouth was dry, but he could still feel her sharp-clawed digit as it forced its way further in. His mouth opened a little wider, almost reflexively.  
Though her expression betrayed her interest, Moira's exploration continued with no clear destination, her finger rubbing over his teeth and tongue heedless of the way her sharp thumbnail seemed to scrape away his flesh with it. Were it not for the invasion of her finger in his mouth, this would feel as routine as any of the other observations she had made of him when she began her experiments. But she was so close to him now, other hand still curled around the barrel of his shotgun with utter confidence in his inability or lack of desire to fire. Her thumb intruded into his mouth as the rest of her body intruded into his space. The weight of her hand on his face felt impossibly heavy.  
Her thumb withdrew suddenly from his mouth, and he drew in a small, sharp breath.  
Moira examined the wisps of smoke clinging to her thumbnail briefly, then, in a series of actions Reaper could only describe as "inevitable", she placed her hand on his neck, digging in slightly with her nails, and with the barest amount of pressure pulled him forward into her space and kissed him.  
The kiss was aggressive, predatory, and not at all gentle. His sense of touch was different from what it had once been, nerves both amplified and dulled in turn by the SEP and Moira's experimentation, but pain he could still feel, and despite himself the sharp bright tear of her teeth through his lower lip was thrilling. There was no blood, of course, and his skin began to haphazardly knit together almost immediately, but for that single moment he could feel his nerves singing.  
He pulled away from her slightly, and was arrested by the sight of her face, mismatched eyes with pupils blown wide and a little smoke drifting from between her lips. She must have inhaled it, and that thought made Reaper shudder, but part of him wanted her to do it again.  
His way, though. He surged forward, finally tossing his shotgun aside in favor of gripping her around the waist and sinking his teeth into the part of her pale throat exposed above the collar of her shirt. She stiffened, and he felt her wiry arms wrap around his back and then felt the sharp scrape of her nails. He dug his own claws into her back as response, and heard her gasp.  
"Still want to - _ah_ \- be in control so badly, Gabriel?" Moira's voice drifted to him as he focused on sucking a dark bruise into her neck, clearly on the edge of composure but determined not to show it. He had always liked the way she said his name, though when not on missions he discouraged her from using it. That mocking lilt to her voice had lessened as time went on and Blackwatch declined. He realized that he'd missed it. "I don't want to. I am." He bit down again, relishing in it as Moira almost whined. He'd drawn blood.  
"Is that so?"  
Reaper realized abruptly that he was no longer holding her. She stood a few feet back from him, touching the spot on her neck with vague interest. As he watched, she ran a slim finger over the place where his teeth had broken through, closing her eyes for just a moment. Light flowed through her finger and when she had passed fully over the mark it was gone. All that was left was a single drop of blood, shining wetly on her fingertip.  
She closed the distance between them once again and delicately pressed that finger to his lips. Without thinking, he parted them slightly and allowed her to wipe the blood off before she withdrew her hand again. She stepped back and appraised him from a distance.  
"I'll be in touch, Gabriel," she said, and was gone.

When he was certain she wasn't coming back, Reaper finally allowed his tongue to collect the blood from his lips. He tasted the tang of metal but something else as well, something he couldn't define. It made his tongue tingle. It tasted like her.  
Unsettled, Reaper swept from the room using passages he knew would be unused. He needed to be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Overwatch fandom, it's nice to meet you. Yes, I am always like this.  
> (title from  This is Our Science  by Astronautalis)


End file.
